self-destruct

Confide is a free, simple service that makes it possible to send self-destructing messages to friends and colleagues using an iPhone app.

By using your e-mail or Facebook contacts, you can send what amounts to an e-mail through the service. It's then encrypted and the recipient will receive an alert of the pending message. For those who don't have an account, the sign up process only requires a few details (e-mail address and password), and downloading the Confide iOS app. Once you have an account and the app is installed, you're ready to go.

When it comes to secure text messaging, you're often entirely dependent on the whims of the message server. Wickr goes to great lengths to flip that paradigm around, handing control back to you, the sender.

Wickr 2.0's debut on Friday makes it much easier to invite friends to use the app, thanks to a new address-book scanning feature that prevents Wickr from learning who you're inviting. That's a big difference from just about every other service out there, which accesses your address book -- usually with your permission -- and then holds on to that … Read more

You will need to sign up for the service then tweet as you normally would. For tweets you'd like removed from your timeline after a set amount of time, you will have to include a hash tag such as #15m, #5h, or #7d. The hypothetical tweet would then be deleted after 15 minutes, 5 hours, or 7 days. You get the point.

Having tweets automatically removed from your timeline is a convenient way … Read more

Much like the vanishing photos sent with Snapchat, a new Web app lets you send self-destructing messages from your work computer.

New York-based app maker Lamplighter Games last week launched OTR -- for "off the record" messaging -- a browser plug-in that lets you send messages that disappear within 5 seconds of being read.

"We both love using Snapchat, so we thought it would be fun to put Snapchat in the browser," according to Kris Minkstein, who co-founded the company with his brother Andy. "We figured since you're in front of your computer all day at work that you're going to end up sending a lot of these photos to probably the guys sitting next to you at your cubicle." … Read more

There are four new features in the app. You can now send and subsequently self-destruct images and PDFs from Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box to other Wickr users, which expands the limits of the original send-and-self-destruct feature. You can also send up to three 30-second videos, up to 5 MB, per message. Audio messages, which function like voice mails, have been extended to 30 seconds long, as well.

RunCore introduced a new SSD this week -- aptly named InVincible -- that offers one unique feature: a self-destruct button.

Well, the special hard drive actually includes two buttons; a green clicker for intelligent destruction (software-based wiping), and a red option that literally burns and cracks the storage chips within the drive via a major surge of electricity. … Read more

Using the Web site, you can send-self destructing messages to friends, colleagues, or anyone else you may be sending personal information to. The messages are only accessible through a unique URL, and as soon as the URL is viewed once, it is no longer valid.

Using a service like this may seem a bit gimmicky at first, and it is to an extent, but it can come in extremely handy when you want to send personal information and don't like the thought of that information sitting in some e-mail account … Read more